Elementary Teaching Advice

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Hello strangers, I've just gotten a full-time job teaching 5-7 year olds in South Korea. The principal gave me an impression her school is not all work work work so I think the kids there aren't overwhelmed, like at some other schools, but I also have never taught children in this capacity before. I was wondering if anyone here has had any such experience and would be able to provide some tips on how to manage a classroom of children (adults included ).

I start at the end of February, so I want to prepare as much as I can until then. I'm going to be speaking with a foreign teacher from the school next week to get more information about curriculum and such, but yeah, has anyone here taught kids before? Doesn't matter the subject. My main concern is consistently creating lessons to cater to their learning styles, and dos and don'ts, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated




matt72582's Avatar
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I taught kids in Australia... Math, Criminology, and Law. The best thing to do is relax, so they'll be relaxed, and to listen. And try to get them to enjoy learning, and to fix any problems they have. For example, one student was having so much problems with Math, but it wasn't math, it was the story problems that confused him, so his reading wasn't so great, and he was easily confused, but his math was fine. Finding out the root can fix the problem fast so the students can be up to par.



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Also, a mother of the student with the story book math problems was saying how she'd get a tutor, and over and over not only wasn't he learning, but that he didn't like them, (maybe wasn't comfortable). Learning is the most important thing, but I think when the kids like and respect you, you already won them over, and they want to do well to impress you. Especially for the age group of young kids; I think two different people saying the same stuff would get different reactions by the same students.

I think you'll do fine. You came on this message board because you care, and so if you care, they should care, and things should be fine. I had a friend who taught in Vietnam and said it was the greatest experience of her life.



Haha I was wondering how to deal with parents like that. I'll be at a private school so I expect at least a couple of those situations.

Yeah I obviously agree that creating the environment where they feel safe to learn from you is number one. Pinpointing problems like you mentioned is something I tried to do while tutoring on Skype but quite difficult (depending on their language background), maybe it'll be easier face to face.

I think two different people saying the same stuff would get different reactions by the same students.
This haunts everyone



VFN
Winter Calls Thy Name
How do you get hired teaching young children with no apparent degree or experience in the area?



How do you get hired teaching young children with no apparent degree or experience in the area?
I'm certified to teach, but I've never taught children. And how else do you get experience besides getting a job?



VFN
Winter Calls Thy Name
I'm certified to teach, but I've never taught children. And how else do you get experience besides getting a job?
Okay. Good luck.



First of all congratulations on your new job! I worked for many years as a teaching assistant in primary school here in the UK.

I see you're meeting with another teacher next week so you'll know more then, but I would think in South Korea there's a National Curriculum they will have to adhere to. Asian schools are known to be very serious about their children's education. I know Chinese people who complain that the education they had is very strictly formal with no room for fun, art, music , drama and things like that. If you've been employed to provide something along those lines maybe using English language then you'll be fine. It'll be so much fun, I envy you the opportunity - have a great time



@ Thursday, christine, yeah definitely going to focus on visual and interactive activities, even as simple as gestures when I speak. You mentioned drama though, and I had an idea in the back of my mind to do a mini play..I wonder how that would go over.

Thanks honeykid (or honeyed, as this site likes to call you when I type your name)



Congrats on the big life decision, wt, you must be very excited (and a little nervous?)

I have a little teaching experience. I tutor math on and off and also teach ESL to a varied group of adults at the public library in my city. Honestly I've found the best results by far come from working one-on-one with students. That's the best way to really get a feel for what problems people are having and how they think. A lot also depends on the goals of your students. One year I taught math to a girl who was being home-schooled. She hated math and her parents just wanted her to pass standardized tests. Since we only met for an hour once a week all I had time to do was walk her through practice problems and check her on the ones I assigned her the previous week (which she usually hadn't finished). She passed the tests but honestly, if I had been teaching her as one person in a group I doubt she would have gotten enough attention for even the limited results we got, there just wasn't enough interest or time. On the other hand the best experience I've had was tutoring my brother. When he was falling behind in high school math my parents started dropping him off on Saturdays and we'd have the entire day (sometimes he'd even sleep over). That way we could work in depth and really figure out his strengths (probability, geometry) and weaknesses (factoring polynomials) and focus on them accordingly. We also had enough time that when his brain started to get tired we could take a break and watch a movie or walk to the diner or something. I think that's the ideal teaching situation but it's understandably very rare to be able to do that.

The people I teach ESL to come from all different backgrounds, and there's a wide variety of proficiency-levels. To be honest, we're not really equipped to deal with people who have almost no English, which is unfortunate since they're the ones who need the most help. I've worked out a couple contingency lesson plans (I've been collecting pictures; I've found some old catalogs at thrift stores that are very useful for working on basic vocabulary) for when people like that show up, but being able to do that all depends on how many students and teachers show up on a given night, and I haven't really worked out a long term plan which would require setting some concrete goals and assessment tools. As for the rest of the class, sometimes we have them work in groups on grammar problems, or practice reading out-loud and then answering questions about it, or more generally work out topical lesson plans designed to give conversational practice. The ones I've found the most popular so far are various sorts of matching exercises where they work in pairs (or teams) and are each given a similar item or set of items with incomplete (but interlocking) information. They have to work on describing them to each other in order to complete their information. One example (that is very easy to prepare) is a crossword puzzle where one person (or team) has the vertical entries filled in and the other has the horizontals. They can't give the words to each other but have to think of a definition, or paraphrase, or come up with an example sentence where they leave the word blank and the other team has to guess. Another example that's even more popular (but harder to prepare), is to give them two sheets of pictures. Some of the pictures are identical, while others are largely the same but have differing details. The goal is to take turns describing the pictures in as much detail as you can, so you can figure out if your pictures are identical or different.

Hope some of this is helpful, and have a really great time in South Korea. I visited for a month (in 2006) and it was beautiful.

How do you get hired teaching young children with no apparent degree or experience in the area?
The high demand for English teachers in some countries. I have a good friend who was a monolingual Computer Science major with no real teaching experience before he got a job teaching English in South Korea (2003-2008). Of course, there's a wide variability in the quality of teachers (and schools for that matter), as you might guess from the fact many of the teachers my friend worked with didn't even bother to learn any Korean.



@ Thursday, christine, yeah definitely going to focus on visual and interactive activities, even as simple as gestures when I speak. You mentioned drama though, and I had an idea in the back of my mind to do a mini play..I wonder how that would go over.

Thanks honeykid (or honeyed, as this site likes to call you when I type your name)
Definitely go for the mini plays, they are only little children after all and playing is learning at that age. Watch out for the quiet children too, make sure you develop strategies to get them involved. It's very easy in a class of young children to get overwhelmed by the children with the big personalities. You'll get some very self confident kids (or even some naughty ones) that will demand a lot of your attention, but there will be children who will be happy to sit back and if you don't encourage then they'll coast, or even withdraw.



Congrats on the big life decision, wt, you must be very excited (and a little nervous?)
Thanks, yes a little, I read your post, and I'll reply to it tomorrow but I have to go for now, thanks for taking the time to type all that



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Hello strangers, I've just gotten a full-time job teaching 5-7 year olds in South Korea.
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



@ lines, your experience with the little girl is the opposite of how it will be with me. Apparently I'll be with the kids all day, all week, even eating with them, so it'll be more like it was with your brother, which means good results are likely. Hooray to very rare circumstances!

I'll try some of your ESL ideas in a simpler format and see how they go.

@ foster, I learned about 6 when I stayed at a Korean spa. It was, needless to say, a great ice-breaker. #1 is probably the most depressing, and I've known about that too, since my correspondents are female. I'm not sure how worried I am about it being unapologetically noisy. Maybe that means I can shred guitar all day?